


If I Had Wings (Like Noah's Dove)

by Meduseld



Category: Turn (TV 2014)
Genre: Billy deserves more love and analysis, Canon Compliant, Character Study, Emotional Hurt, Gen, History was ugly as hell, Period-Typical Racism, Post Valley Forge, Slavery, Stuff we need to discuss more
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-06-19
Updated: 2017-06-19
Packaged: 2018-11-16 06:13:53
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 376
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/11247978
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Meduseld/pseuds/Meduseld
Summary: He still flinches sometimes when the general moves too quickly.





	If I Had Wings (Like Noah's Dove)

Billy learned a long time ago to never hope for much.

A decent bed, a decent meal, all of them privileges and all of them impermanent. He has no possessions but these: the chambers of his heart and the words in his ears and the very back of his mind, the place that is still his and his alone.

Even his immortal soul is God’s.

It’s more than he thought he’d have, the life he’s lived, but he still lives surrounded by men that talk of freedom and look right through him.

The place he’d have in the new world the General wants to bring about would be the same. Meet the new master, he’s just like the old.

Anybody who says different is a liar or a fool.

Like the boys Billy grew up with, looking just like him but dreaming about owning their own lands, own grand house, of looking a man like Washington in the eye and saying ‘no’.

It’s almost funny.  That one came true.

For one night.

A few hours, while he watched as the only hope Billy has of making it through the war alive, because his wagon is hitched whether he likes it or not, tried to get a grip on his own mind.

Funny how that could be everything and nothing.

He’d almost gotten it silent, the part of him that kept reminding him of his place in the world and how quickly he might be leaving it. What point was there?

And then that night.

He can’t keep it silent now, whispering the way it does about all the lives he could live, all the ways it could change, and all the ways in which he’s still so damn _stuck_.

The war might turn the world upside down but not everything in it will move.

He’s half lost in his thoughts, trying to keep them silent as his hands clear the table on their own.

The General moves too quickly and his breath catches. Too loud.

He stays as still as he dares, eyes turned away.

It wasn’t easy before but it wasn’t so damn hard.

In the corner of his eye, the bend of Washington’s arm might even be apologetic.

But he can’t let himself hope.


End file.
